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Report #3 from Tom Vassos and Jacqueline Fortin
WARNING:  Long Append

Report on Track D, The Internet Web
Using the WWW for Business and Marketing

Report from:  Tom Vassos
Speaker:  Jill Ellesworth (esteemed fellow forum participant)
Author, The Internet Business Book, Wiley
Author, Marketing on the Internet, Wiley
Senior Partner, Oak Ridge Research
http://www.oak-ridge.com/orr.html
(This entire presentation can be found at this Web site)

Jill started off by mentioning that some of the material
that she would be covering is based on actual research.

Don't just put your e-mail address on your business cards,
put your URL there as well.

Item Turn Over:  The dead web is like a ghost town.  Nobody
is updating it or trying to build traffic.  Turn over you Web
material on a regular basis.

Add an indispensible tool like the WebCrawler to keep people
coming back.

Add an information service to keep people coming back such
as Tenagra with the tennis scores, Sprint with the latest World
Cup soccor scores (which generated hundreds of thousands of
of hits), DEC with up-to-date election results every
15 minutes.....Use this technique to build traffic.

Some sites change their content every day to build repeat traffic.

Several sites are adding chat areas to allow for interaction
between their visitors.

Don't be fooled by a high number of hits to your site.  Aside
from just getting them to visit, you also went to get them to
stay as long as possible, be provided with a useful service
(e.g., FEDEX allows you to determine exactly where your
package is), etc.

In real estate, it's "location, location, location".  For Web
sites, it's "content, content, content".  Content proved to be
the most important aspect of Web sites in the research that
has been done.

Product support can also be a valuable tool to offer through
your Web pages.  Jill was able to get the answer to a
technical question through Dell's Web pages within 5 minutes.

Corporations make the mistake of leading with dull info such
as financials, messages from the Chairman, etc.  That stuff
should be on the bottom of the page.  Other truly valuable
services should be higher up on the list.

Internet marketing should include:

Register your Web site in several areas (Yahoo, Cern, What's
    Hot lists, search engines, etc.)
Participate in discussion lists and USENET groups
Make press announcements
Create FAQs
Tie in to Gopher and FTP
Create an appropriate Sig File
Have a .plan file if you can

Promote your Web address on business cards, letterhead, flyers,
Brochures, TV ads, magazine ads, etc.

Pizza Hut has not created a site just to sell pizza.  They have
done it to "be a cool company", to advertise their corporation, etc.
Roll Royce is not selling cars on the Web, but it is a promotional
tool.

Choose your URL carefully.  Don't use mixed case, use all lower
case.  Try not to use the ~(tilde) character.  Make it simple
enough that you could include it in a radio advertisement and
people will remember it.

Don't just have 1-800 number on your sites under certain
categories.  Include both the content AND the 1-800 number
for further info.

The archives to the INET marketing forum can be found off
of the following home page:
http://tenagra.com

The next speaker was Rosalind Resnick talking on:
"Internet Cybermalls:  Retailing on the Web"

Security on the Internet is quickly moving forward.  A standards
war is brewing between Secure HTTP and the Secure Sockets
Layer (SSL) protocol (both based on RSA security).
SSL is more proprietary,
and Secure HTTP seems to have broader support.  (Netscape
claims that over 3 million people are already using SSL.)
Rosalind feels that both protocols may survive because of
compatibility between the two, as well as slightly different
positioning relative to function.  Netscape has announced that
it will support Secure HTTP in the future.
(note from Tom:  I understand this issue may have been
dramatically changed based on developments that happened
yesterday.)

An important part of encryption technology should be that
it is fairly transparent to the user.  (i.e. they shouldn't have
to learn about encryption technology before they can order
something.)

First Union is planning a cyber banking venture.  This will
include transactions, home banking, etc.  Well Fargo has
also launched a Cybermall venture with several store fronts.
Industry Net is a focal site for hundreds of businesses.  They
will also be implementing secure transactions shortly.

Well that's it for this session.

Jacqueline Fortin:
I started off in track A:  The Business of the Internet
The first speaker was Neil Randall (Co-Author of "World-Wide
Web Unleashed" and author of "Teach yourself the internet around
the world in 21 days", "Plug and Play Internet", and "The Story
of the Internet")   nrandall@watarts.uwaterloo.ca
or     nrandall@watservI.uwaterloo.ca

What are the cost of doing business on the WWW?  Internet connections
could potentially be thousands of dollars for a T1 line.  However without
a good modem you could wait for long periods of time to download and
that would not be good for business.  You get what you pay for.

You can hire an internet provider to put a home page for a $100 a month,
but nothing is going to happen.  You must really invest to make it
happen.

You will have web maintenance costs.  At the very least, change your
page once a month.  Better yet, Neil's recommendation was to
change it once a week.  Your customer needs to see something
different to keep them coming back.

Legal consultation should be considerd.  Neil pointed out that:
"now you can get sued for drinking hot coffee that burns your
tongue, so it may very well be possible that you're sued for
slow delivery of info!  :-)  "

Internet investments are not guaranteed to be automatic money
makers.

Why jump on the Web?  It's Hot!  Everyone seems to be jumping on the
bandwagon. It's the future.  It's also fast growing  "If predictions go
as planned we will have more people on the internet than we have on
earth." :-)  Well I'm not sure how that's possible, but now a days
anything goes.  It's several million people with money.  Last but not
least, you don't want to get left behind.

Why should you wait?  It may very well be more sizzle than steak right
now.  Most of what you find on the WWW is advertising.  Some USENET messages can get very rude,
it's really quite shameful.  Be careful who you associate with on the
internet.  Do you want to be guilty by association?  Is anyone getting
rich?  Not yet, some are doing okay.  If you can wait, let others work
out some if the bugs and make the mistakes.

Here is a list of Neil Randall's Ten Commandments od Effective Web
Design:
1. Change constantly
2. Employ a graphics specialist
3. Test with various modems, even slow ones
4. Give real info (w5 on W3) Who, What, Where, When & Why on the
World Wide Web
5. Project ethos, (more Personal stuff) and not just the corporate vision
6. Make forms easy to use
7. Offer deals and stuff that they can't get elsewhere
8. Build in surprise
9. Don't assault with endless hype
10. Ask yourself if you would come back
Neil added an 11th commandment because he felt we needed one.
11. Design for the web and only for the web
(Tom disagrees with this to some extent.  You also need
to think about how you can build certain core material that
can be reuseable in brochures, spec sheets, WWW pages, etc.)

I hope my notes were clear enough so that you understood the message
Neil was trying to convey.  Sometimes I can't read my own form of
shorthand.

The next session I attended was "The Internet Mall: Where Customers
find Business".
Speaker:  Dave Taylor.  President, Intuitive Systems.
Taylor@netcom.com

I found this session to be clear and concise in it's message about
shopping on the internet, particularly the Internet Mall.  It would seem
that The Internet Mall is trying to position itself as the "mall of malls"

Do people shop the internet?  Yes.  What are the biggest concerns?
Some seem to think that security is an issue.  I would expect that
it is however, Dave feels that maybe it has been overblown somewhat
and that it is not as bad as you have come to think.  What he feels is
the biggest concern is that consumers can't find what they want....which
is where The Internet Mall comes in.

This mall is set up like any mall or maybe more precisely, like a
department store,
with specific floors that have designated goods. e.g. Floor one would
consist of computer hardware/software, floor two: personal items, etc.
Dave's company does try to monitor to some degree what businesses
you would find in their mall.  Each company has to follow specific
criteria.  For example, they have to sell a product or service.

They were able to compile some data covering which products were
the most popular.  It would seem that floor three (Computer hardware)
is the most popular, floor one is next (books and media) floor two
is third (personal items) and so on.  Here's some actual statistics:

Total number of hits in March:  1/3 of 1 million
Total number of visitors in March:  7,951 visitors
(notice the big difference there.  It's nice that Dave and the
Internet mall are able to track these numbers.  Dave, what
software are you using?)

Number of Visitors by Floor:
(Dave, please make sure I'm quoting the right statistic here)
Number of Visitors      Floor        Description
6592                     3            Computer Hardware
5111                     1            Books and Media
4247                     5            Clothes and Sporting Goods
4004                     2            Personal Items
2681                                  Services
2426                                  The Food Court
2006                                  Furniture

The next fact that seemed to be surprising was the source
of the country that generated the inquiry:

Rank:        Country:
1             Canada
2             U.K.
3             Germany
4             Australia
5             United States

I could not write fast enough to get the rest of the list before it
was taken off the overhead projector.  I think you get the idea.

When The Internet Mall was formed in February 1994 they had 21
stores.  By December 1994 they had grown to 635 stores and by
April 1995 had amassed 1300 stores.  These numbers are expected
to keep on growing and growing and growing...you know like the
Energizer keeps going and going....okay so I'm a little tired.  My humor
ability is a little sluggish.

I almost forgot to mention that the cost of getting space in the Internet
Mall is free, but if you would like to advertise your company logo, there
would be a cost for that and you would then be the first store they see
on that floor.  It is those companies that sponsor the others to have
their business in the mall.

Dave, you covered a lot of material fairly quickly so please correct
me on any misconceptions on the information above.

Tom Vassos:
The next session I attending was on Distance Learning so it
may be of more interest to teachers, and companies that must
train people at a distance.

The speaker was someone from Applied Business
Telecommunications

The use of distance learning via the Internet is growing
dramatically because of low cost and availability.

A heavy level of interaction is achieved through classes
where everyone is online with video and audio links in to
the instructor.  Vendors are working on providing real-time
video links through the Internet.

This week, students are getting Master's degrees from
a U.S. university, and they have never been to the U.S.
A deal was made with IBM to provide ThinkPads to the
students.

The Open University only teaches through methods such as
the Internet, audio support, video support, computer-based
tutorials, etc.

They are the virtual university.  Several colleges provide
courses through the Open University.

One criticism of this environment is the lack of interaction
with the instructor and other students.  The Internet seems
to provide even more interaction than a standard teaching
environment.

Technologies coming in the next few years:

Desktop video conferencing (or personal conferencing):
One advantage is that it can be used in the comfort of
your own home.  It can contain a phone which pops up
on your screen to be able to call the student (or you can
store those phone numbers).  A visual image of the
student can appear on the screen, as well as a white
board for creating drawings or words that would help
to enhance the discussion of a particular topic.

Video on Demand:  For education this should be here in
12 to 36 months.

Online teaching:  You're able to utilize experts in specific
topic areas for very specific discussions.

That's it for now...see you tomorrow.

Tom Vassos                         Jacqueline Fortin
vassos@vnet.ibm.com

***********************************************************************
TOM VASSOS, B.E.S., M.B.A., Part-time Instructor, University of Toronto
Internet Writer, Educator, Speaker:  Call for courseware, keynotes, etc.
Manager, InfoHighway Marketing Strategies, IBM Software Solutions Div'n
E-MAIL: vassos@vnet.ibm.com  PHONE: 416-448-2189  FAX: 416-448-2893 (c)

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